Note 45 — PART I SOUTHWARD HO! (continued 3)
Reading edition
It would appear that in Mississippi there are 15,000 registered negro voters out of a negro male population of voting age stated by the census of 1900 at 197,936, of whom 53 per cent. were illiterate. For four other States the numbers stand as follows:—
Registered negro Negro males of Percentage of
voters. voting age. illiterates.
Virginia 23,000 146,122 52
S. Carolina 22,000 152,860 54
Louisiana 6,400 147,348 61
N. Carolina 6,250 127,114 53
In several States, according to Mr. E. G. Murphy (“The Present South,” p. 198), “Many negroes have been discouraged from offering to register by reason of the fact that the State organization of the party with which they have been associated recently refused to admit even their most respected representatives to its Conventions. [This is the ‘lily-white’ policy referred to by Mr. Shipton, p. 34.] Large numbers have also refrained from registration because of their unwillingness to meet the poll-tax requirement. The interest of the masses of the negroes in things political has, for quite different reasons, been much exaggerated by the representatives of both parties.”